Indian Strategic Studies: 09/17/25

17 September 2025

Why the Indian Ocean may be home to the next nuclear crisis

Nitya Labh

The Indian Ocean is an overlooked theater for nuclear escalation and conflict. Since the start of this year alone, Iran threatened to strike a US military base in the Chagos Archipelago, China conducted live-fire drills off the coast of Australia, and India and Pakistan faced a sudden escalation in boundary tensions that extended into the maritime space. If not carefully managed, these military standoffs could escalate into wider nuclear conflict. Despite being home to six nuclear-armed or near-nuclear states, five maritime chokepoints, four Nuclear Weapons Free Zones, and 12 sovereignty disputes, the Indian Ocean remains understudied in nuclear discourse.

Current studies analyze the Indian Ocean according to its various sub-regions: East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, etc. This compartmentalization blinds policy makers to the region’s nuclear risks and escalation dynamics. Reframing the region as one continuous maritime theater would give policy makers a new way to anticipate and manage these threats in the future.

Diego Garcia: the base at the center of escalation. Take the recent escalations between Iran and the United States, for example. The United States has one military base in the Indian Ocean, on the island of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago. This base has historically been used for “deterrence missions” against Iran. In March, Washington increased deployments to Diego Garcia as part of a campaign of signaling and deception leading up to the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. The surge of force included B-52 and B-2 bombers, KC-135 tankers, and C-17 transports. Although the US attack on Iran ultimately did not originate from Diego Garcia, the island served as a decoy to distract from the impending attack.

In response to early threats from the United States, the Iranian government warned it would attack the Indian Ocean base with ballistic missiles and drones. To date, however, Tehran has only retaliated by limiting inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency. On August 28, Britain, France, and Germany declared Iran in “significant non-performance” of the Iran nuclear deal, triggering a 30-day countdown for “snapback” sanctions to be imposed. Experts warn these sanctions could spark uncontrolled retaliation from Tehran. As tensions remain high, any military standoffs run the risk of escalating into the Indian Ocean region.

US-Pakistan Relations: A Conversation with Ambassador Husain Haqqan

Tushar Shetty

Former Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani discusses the evolving dynamics of US-Pakistan-India relations, Pakistan’s military influence on foreign policy, regional terrorism challenges, and the prospects for South Asian integration.

This transcript is based on an interview done for Beyond the Indus, The Diplomat’s South Asia-focused podcast.

India-Pakistan Relations and Regional Integration

Tushar: Ambassador Haqqani*, I recently watched your interview with an Indian news channel following the Pulwama* attack. You were making some interesting points about India-Pakistan dialogue, but the conversation format didn’t allow you to complete your thoughts. Post-Pulwama*, it seems India and Pakistan are shouting past each other without any real dialogue. What isn’t getting through to each side in their understanding of the other? How would you assess both countries’ current strategies for engagement, and how could each side improve their approach?

Ambassador Haqqani: That’s a good question, Tushar*. Shouting is never conducive to dialogue anywhere, and that interview exemplified this phenomenon. Instead of allowing people to complete their thoughts, there’s a tendency to make predetermined points without listening to each other.

Pakistanis seriously don’t understand that India, which was always willing to talk to Pakistan from 1947 until 2008, has been profoundly affected by events like the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Terrorism matters deeply to Indians, and they feel frustrated that they haven’t been able to eliminate this threat.

Conversely, Indians don’t understand that Pakistan is not a monolith. It’s a country of multiple nationalities with diverse perspectives. Yes, the military controls the polity, but there are people within Pakistan who have different viewpoints.

Why America Should Bet on Pakistan

Moeed Yusuf

Washington’s South Asia policy is adrift. Since roughly the turn of the century, U.S. leaders have seen India as a democratic counterweight to China and sought to position New Delhi in a wider competition with Beijing. At the same time, U.S. officials have grown disillusioned with Pakistan, once an ally during the Cold War, and see Islamabad as an unreliable partner when it comes to combating terrorism in the region. They are also displeased with Pakistan’s growing closeness to China, which has become a key source of infrastructure investment and military equipment for Islamabad.

The United States bet on India, but that bet has not paid off. After two decades, India remains both unwilling and unable to align itself fully with U.S. preferences in the region and beyond. This year, the relationship between the two countries began to fray. New Delhi’s quixotic quest for multipolarity in the international system—that is, a world not structured around the hegemony of a single superpower or the competition of two great powers—has rankled Washington. And it has now earned India the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump. Citing ongoing Indian purchases of Russian oil, Trump raised tariffs on imports from India to 50 percent in August, the highest rate he has imposed on any country. To make matters worse, New Delhi reacted by signaling its intent to strengthen ties with Beijing, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for very public and amicable meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the same time, relations between the United States and India’s neighbor and adversary Pakistan have experienced a surprising thaw. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has warmed to Pakistan’s military. In March, he praised Pakistan for its arrest of an Islamic State operative suspected of involvement in a 2021 bombing in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. soldiers. Then, in May, he claimed to have brought an end to a four-day military clash between India and Pakistan that had threatened to escalate dangerously. “We stopped a nuclear conflict,” Trump declared. “I think it could have been a bad nuclear war.” He has repeatedly claimed credit for preventing a catastrophe ever since; Pakistani officials even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. India, which rejects outside attempts to mediate its disputes with Pakistan, has denied that any such intervention took place. According to reporting by The New York Times, Trump asked Modi in June to echo Pakistani leaders and nominate him for the Nobel prize. Modi refused, and the two have not spoken since.

US-South Asia Relations Under Trump 2.0: An Interview with Michael Kugelman

Tushar Shetty

South Asia expert Michael Kugelman discusses the dramatic shifts in US relations with India and Pakistan, examining trade wars, diplomatic tensions, and the changing geopolitical landscape under the second Trump administration.

This transcript is based on an interview done for Beyond the Indus, The Diplomat’s South Asia-focused podcast.

Pakistan’s Diplomatic Comeback

Tushar: Michael, it’s been incredibly busy in South Asian politics lately. I’d like to start with Pakistan and the United States. The comeback that Pakistan has made in its relationship with the United States is remarkable. Trump earlier singled out Pakistan for double dealing during the war on terror, but Pakistan has now secured a favorable 19% tariff rate and multi-billion dollar trade deals. How did Pakistan achieve this? What did its negotiators promise in DC, and how realistic are these commitments for multi-billion dollar oil and minerals deals, especially with China being a big player in that region?

Michael Kugelman: It really is extraordinary. The US-Pakistan relationship has had its ups and downs, so in principle, one should not necessarily have ruled out some type of improvement in ties. Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the trajectory of US-Pakistan ties had been pretty negative. But because it’s been a roller coaster, why not think that things could get better?

However, one would not have expected things to get better at all. One main reason is, as you noted, President Trump himself, as well as other senior officials in this administration, have been very hard on Pakistan. They’ve been harsh critics of Pakistan in the past. Also, some of the few issues that formed the pillars of cooperation during the Biden years—things like climate change and clean energy development cooperation—would clearly not be priorities for the Trump administration, especially after it suspended most foreign assistance and dismantled USAID. Those were big components of the US-Pakistan relationship.

As China’s military shows off a mighty arsenal, its people are untested

Joe Keary

It feels like we’re now living with a steady drumbeat of activity from China’s military that captures headlines and keeps analysts busy trying to figure out what it all means. Beijing’s latest offering, the 3 September parade, gave us striking images of a rapidly modernising force. But it told us little about the military’s ability to use these advanced weapons, or how confident its leader is in its human element.

Stories about China’s military are now a regular feature of foreign affairs reporting. In May 2022, a Chinese fighter jet released chaff ahead of an Australian surveillance plane, a dangerous manoeuvre that made us stop and think: what if an Australian plane were lost because of provocations from China’s military? Later that year, Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the United States House of Representatives, visited Taiwan. This triggered large-scale Chinese drills around the island, aimed at intimidating the government, people and international partners of Taiwan. Such exercises are now frequent.

This year, China’s navy sent a naval task group to circumnavigate Australia, showing that our distant continent is no longer out of its range. And this month, we saw what was described as the largest-ever display of modern Chinese military capabilities: soldiers, rockets, drones and fighters paraded past a smiling Chinese president, flanked by his closest international partners and friends.

Put all this together and commentators are quick to suggest that China’s military may be approaching or leading the US in certain areas; that the parade’s new technologies demonstrate China’s ability to seize Taiwan while repelling US intervention; or, more broadly, that it signals that Chinese President Xi Jinping is increasingly willing to use his military to pursue regional and global ambitions.

We already knew that China was fielding some of the most advanced military technologies in the world. Its missile capabilities likely lead the list. One of its military branches, the rocket force, has the world’s largest and most diverse inventory of land-based ballistic and cruise missiles, including new hypersonic weapons. China’s shipbuilding capacity tops the world and supports the largest navy by ship count. Its cyber, space and electronic warfare capabilities are all formidable.

Forget China or Russia: America Is the Stealth Fighter King

Reuben Johnson

Key Points and Summary – Many nations market new fighters as “stealth,” but most only manage radar signature instead of achieving true low observability.

-U.S. programs defined successive generations—from angled F-117 to blended F-35—and now aim beyond shaping with Boeing’s F-47/NGAD.

F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter. Image taken on 7/19/2025 in Dayton, Ohio, USAF Museum.

-Core rules still apply: avoid concave reflectors, bury inlets, and control seams with extreme precision and materials.

-Claims that canard-equipped designs rival U.S. standards don’t survive physics; forward surfaces and sloppy joins raise RCS significantly.

-This piece explains what real stealth means, why “managed RCS” isn’t enough, and how NGAD points to the next era of survivability and air dominance.

Stealth: Truly Made in USA

WARSAW, POLAND – It has become a common practice among fighter aircraft designers and producers outside the United States to present new designs and claim them to be stealthy.

To some degree, according to US experts in this esoteric field of aerospace technology, they can describe what they have developed as “stealthy,” but most do not meet US standards in this regard.

Stealth is a term used very broadly in many instances and often inaccurately. The airplanes these other nations have designed are, in the words of those specialists who spoke to National Security Journal, “platforms where the signature or radar cross section (RCS) of the aircraft has been managed or mitigated. They may look like a stealthy aircraft, but in reality, they are far more visible on radar than we are led to believe.

A U.S.-China War over Taiwan: Who Wins?

Andrew Latham

Key Points and Summary – War in the Taiwan Strait wouldn’t yield a clean U.S. win. China’s missiles, submarines and proximity threaten carriers and forward bases.

-Taiwan is shifting to asymmetric defense—mobile missiles, hardened infrastructure, civil resilience—but the U.S. industrial base, munitions stocks and repair capacity lag.

-Likely phases: opening missile/cyber/space strikes; a brutal sea-denial fight against invasion convoys; possible blockades and urban combat if a beachhead forms, with nuclear risk overhead.

-The most plausible outcome is denial—China fails to conquer—but at staggering cost. To deter or prevail, Washington must surge production, harden bases, lock in allied access and prepare publics now.

A Taiwan War: Who Wins and At What Cost?

On any given day in the not-too-distant future, the Taiwan Strait could erupt in war. Missiles and aircraft could race across the Strait’s skies; warships and submarines could fight in its waters. And the world will ask: did America—and its friend Taiwan—have a fighting chance?

This question is not idle speculation. More than a year of stepped-up Chinese military exercises, an expanding Chinese submarine fleet, and accelerating defense reforms in Taiwan have given new urgency to the question.

The answer, uncomfortably, is that the United States can probably prevent a Chinese conquest of Taiwan. But it can do so only at far greater cost, risk, and uncertainty than most public debates suggest.

Preemptive Efforts

Deterrence is the best hope, but if deterrence fails, America will not “win” cleanly. Indeed, the most likely outcome is a bloody denial of Beijing’s objectives, one that depends on the industrial depth of the American and allied response and the strength of Taiwan’s asymmetric defenses.

Xi’s Grand Show Of Force Failed To Challenge The US – Analysis

Collins Chong Yew Keat

Chinese President Xi Jinping orchestrated a strategically and purposely intended display of power and diplomacy, from hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, to the biggest military parade in Beijing to showcase China’s coming of age to the world. Both events are well crafted to send a direct show of force to Trump, as a warning to Taiwan, and a subtle warning to other potential adversaries and regional powers that China’s power is unrivalled in the region, and is increasingly toppling the American power.

However, despite efforts to frame this new narrative and to consolidate synergy and strength with new allies in elevating this new world order with China firmly in the lead, deep historical wariness and suspicions and this fragile alliance of convenience will not hold, and the entrenched and proven global order led by the US for more than eight decades will continue to endure.

The SCO summit, the largest ever, with Xi being true to expectations in rallying powers to “oppose hegemonism” and reject Cold War bloc politics, in a clear rebuke of Trump and the US.

The biggest military parade marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s WWII surrender, is being crafted to showcase the latest state of the art military hardware and assets from hypersonic missiles to laser weapons and unmanned submarines, all being intended as a stark warning to all including Washington and Taipei.

Deterrence Signals to Taiwan and Trump

The carefully crafted optic is meant to show Xi has powerful friends in his camp, reinforcing China’s claim to great-power leadership. The inclusion of Indonesia and Malaysia as summit guests was also a deliberate move, signaling Beijing’s intent to broaden its influence beyond its core Eurasian partners.

In Xi’s strategic vision, events like the SCO summit and Victory Day parade were more than just commemorations, they were meant to be platforms to consolidate a China-led coalition on the world stage.

The limits of Xi and Putin’s ‘no-limits’ partnership

Ruby Osman and Dan Sleat

Much has changed since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin last stood together atop Tiananmen Square in 2015. When they did so again this week, it was supposedly as equal partners. Of course, the reality is far more complex.

The conventional wisdom is that China has cemented its position as the dominant partner, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After all, it is now Russia’s biggest trading partner, accounting for more than half of Russian imports in 2023, whereas Russia does not even make China’s top five. While Russia relies on China to buy roughly half of its crude oil exports, these purchases account for only 17.5 percent of China’s total oil imports. Simply put, Russia needs China to keep its own economy going.

Yet for all this dependence, China is not dictating outcomes, and the Kremlin is not acting like a junior partner. Consider the war in Ukraine. While it has some significant upsides for China — not least by diverting US resources from the Pacific theater — there is no doubt that Putin is calling the shots on the timing, scope and endgame.

On paper, China might have the leverage to influence Russia’s policy, but it is hard to imagine a scenario in which Ukraine could compel China to use it. Doing so would not only jeopardize China’s relations with a key partner, but also contravene its own core foreign-policy principle of “non-interference.” Putin knows that better than anyone.

Although China has consistently pitched itself as a “peacemaker,” that role has been filled by other countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia; and now, US President Donald Trump and Putin have proved capable of engaging each other without a broker.

The limits of Chinese influence are even more striking around its own borders, where Russia’s deepening partnership with North Korea is raising alarms. China might welcome Russian meddling in Europe, but potentially destabilizing the Korean Peninsula is quite another matter.

China and Russia Are Winning the Hypersonic Missile Race

Sam Skove

At China’s massive military parade this month celebrating the end of World War II in the Pacific, Beijing showcased its line of anti-ship hypersonic missiles—an implicit warning that in a future conflict, the United States could see its $13 billion aircraft carriers at the bottom of the sea.

China is not the only U.S. adversary investing in the weapons. Russia has also made strides in fielding hypersonic missiles, whose high speeds and maneuverability make them the ideal weapon for destroying high-value targets.

The Greatest Danger in the Taiwan Strait

Joel Wuthnow

Tension across the Taiwan Strait has raised fears that Beijing and Taipei could soon find themselves at war. Most observers imagine two possible avenues that could lead to conflict. In a so-called war of choice, Beijing could try to capture Taiwan by force after careful consideration of the economic, military, and political risks. Such an aggressive action without explicit provocation would reflect Chinese leaders’ judgment that the island could be taken at minimal cost. Alternately, Beijing might launch a so-called war of necessity if it felt that Taiwan had crossed a political redline that permanently threatened China’s control

Michaela Dodge, Russia Is at War with the West, No. 636, September 11, 2025

Dr. Michaela Dodge

If the victim does not understand the game, the loss of a pawn here or a knight there does not worry him. If his thoughts are elsewhere, he does not see the traps set for him by his opponent. If his will to win in insufficient, his strength is gradually eroded until, when the tide of combat goes clearly against him, he discovers too late that the price of defeat is intolerably high.[1]

The term “hybrid warfare,” defined as a set of activities below the level of armed conflict, is not useful to describe Russia’s activities against the West. In fact, the term masks the severity of Moscow’s actual actions and distracts the West from pursuing the kind of retaliatory measures that would lead Russia to pull back from its campaign against targets in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states. By evoking the term “hybrid warfare”[2] (or its close euphemisms like “gray zone conflict,” “shadow war,” or activities “below the level of armed conflict”) rather than acknowledging that Russia is, by its own account, at war with the West, gives the impression that the situation is less serious than it actually is.

Russia’s activities are an element of its comprehensive warfare against the West. Russia’s goals include restoring its former sphere of influence in former Warsaw Pact countries that are now NATO members, undermining the legitimacy of the democratic process, and sowing disputes within NATO.[3] So far, NATO countries have lacked the political will to impose costs that would dissuade Russia to stop its destructive activities that extend well beyond simply the information sphere. Countering Russia’s activities demands a comprehensive response beyond the West’s contemporary defensive measures.[4]

Russia’s Aggression in Europe

Russia’s list of aggressive actions against targets in Europe is long and its campaign is “intensifying” according to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.[5] The number of Russia’s attacks quadrupled between 2022 and 2023, and tripled between 2023 and 2024.[6] Russia has conducted over 150 operations on NATO territory since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[7] Russia’s activities range from assassinations and murder attempts, attacks against NATO’s infrastructure, to acts of vandalism through people recruited by Russian handlers via social media.[8] Russia is becoming bolder, with its drones violating Polish airspace in September 2025.[9] Poland in cooperation with NATO allies shot several down of these drones.[10] The more immediate goal of the campaign is to weaken Europe’s support for Ukraine and to disrupt supply chains through which aid for Ukraine flows.[11] Russia also wants to weaken NATO and undermine the political consensus within the Alliance.

Incompetent technocracy: The EU miscalculated on Google

The European Commission has not had the best year. It started off with the man they all hoped would go away, Donald Trump, returning to the American presidency. They then became entangled in a massive debate over how many regulations to cut – regulations they had only just put into effect a few years ago. Then, Trump launched a trade war that ultimately forced them to agree to a humiliating, one-sided trade deal which keeps America’s tariffs and will see all the EU’s tariffs ended.

This likely explains the Commission’s announcement last week of a nearly €3 billion fine against Google for abusive practices. Specifically, the European Union found that the company was giving unfair advantage to its own advertising placement services (advertising is extremely lucrative for the platform) and made clear that the only way to avoid the fine would be for Google to sell off its advertising services.

How the Commission reached the fine total (specifically €2.95 billion) is hazy: The guidelines purport to lay out a specific formula, but in reality allow them to levy whatever they feel like, leaving the exact process unknown.

What is not unknown, however, is the response from the American government. Google is an American company, after all, and the American president – Europe’s favourite – was rather upset. President Trump wrote that the fine was “taking money that would otherwise go to American investments and jobs,” adding that it was “very unfair” and that he would “not allow these discriminatory actions to stand.” Trump also wrote that he was considering responding with a Section 301 action, which allows the executive branch to effectively charge Europe for what it deems are unfair practices. It also allows the president to terminate any trade agreements, which could include the recent US-EU trade agreement.

All of this, on the surface, sounds great for Europe. After all, the agreement is extremely unpopular: One survey found that around six out of ten EU citizens are “favourable” to the idea of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen resigning over the deal and slightly over half feel “humiliated” by it. One would think that this Google penalty would be the way out for the Commission: T”hey could let Trump rip up the deal, sound like they are taking a stand against America, throw their international weight around, and show the world that their tangled mass of laws actually have some meaning.

Marine Corps reaches deal with Palantir for Maven Smart System

Jon Harper

The Marine Corps is acquiring a new enterprise license from Palantir Technologies as it looks to proliferate the company’s AI-powered Maven Smart System capability throughout the force, the service announced Wednesday.

The contract was finalized Aug. 15 in partnership with the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office, the Silicon Valley-headquartered Defense Innovation Unit, and the Army Research Lab, according to a press release.

The announcement did not disclose the dollar value of the contract, and the Marine Corps has not yet provided that information.

Last year, the Defense Department inked a $480 million, five-year IDIQ contract with Palantir for the MSS technology. A few months ago, DOD revealed its decision to increase that contract ceiling to nearly $1.3 billion through 2029, to meet the “growing demand” for the tool.

The Marine Corps’ latest pursuit of these types of capabilities comes as the U.S. military is pursuing a warfighting construct known as Combined Joint-All Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2, with the aim of better connecting its sensors, shooters and data flows through a unified network.

“MSS is a mission command application (MCA) and data integration platform that aggregates data across Service and Joint C2 technology stacks to share a live, synchronized view of the battlespace,” officials wrote in Wednesday’s press release. “This enables rapid sensor-to-shooter engagements through a fully digital workflow, leveraging automation and AI-driven tools for advanced target management.”

Under the new deal, Fleet Marine Force units will have expanded access to Maven Smart System licensing down to the tactical level within each major subordinate command, and the supporting establishment will also use it to “support training, integration testing, and reach-back support,” per the release.

In a statement, Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said the MSS capability will enhance intelligence, targeting and decision-making for joint fires integration and maritime domain awareness.

Trump’s Hyundai Raid Drains U.S. Battery Brains

Christina Lu

For all of its efforts to drive a domestic manufacturing boom in key industries, the United States remains heavily reliant on Asian expertise to build batteries, the powerful technologies that underpin drones, electric vehicles, and much more.

It’s a reality that was laid bare last week when U.S. immigration officials raided an EV battery plant construction site in Georgia and detained around 475 workers, most of whom were South Korean nationals. The plant is co-owned by Hyundai, a South Korean carmaker. U.S. authorities said the raid was the biggest single-site enforcement operation in the Department of Homeland Security’s history.

How 33-hour manhunt ended with Charlie Kirk suspect in custody

Jude Sheerin

The breaking news was announced by US President Donald Trump on a morning television show.

"I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him," said Trump on the sofa of Fox & Friends on Friday in New York City. "In custody."

"Essentially, someone that was very close to him turned him in."

It was Trump, too, who first announced that his political ally, Charlie Kirk, had died after he was shot in the neck while hosting an outdoor event attended by about 3,000 people at Utah Valley University (UVU) on Wednesday.

At a news conference on Friday morning, officials identified the person in custody as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson and said he'd been arrested on Thursday night, some 33 hours after the shooting.Obituary: Charlie Kirk

How a college dropout became a Maga star

"We got him," Utah Governor Spencer Cox told reporters. Robinson, a Utah native and electrical apprentice who had been living with his parents "for a long time" according to authorities, will be formally charged on Tuesday.

The suspect lives in St George, Utah, near Zion National Park, about 250 miles (400km) south-west of the campus where Kirk was shot, BBC Verify has found.

He is the oldest of three brothers, and his family is of Mormon faith and active in the church.

According to the BBC's US partner CBS, two law enforcement sources said Robinson's father had recognised his son from images circulated by the FBI.

The sources added that the 22-year-old had confessed to his father, who urged him to turn himself in.

Russia Is Losing the War—Just Not to Ukraine

Jeremy Shapiro

Vladimir Putin, we’ve been told since the start of the war in Ukraine, has goals that extend well beyond territory: He seeks to upend the post–Cold War international order, to reconstruct the Soviet sphere of influence, and to allow Russia to reassume its rightful position as a world power equal to the United States. Bilateral summits, such as the recent one between Donald Trump and Putin in Anchorage, offer a symbolic recognition of that aspiration—as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov highlighted not so subtly by showing up in Alaska wearing a CCCP (U.S.S.R.) sweatshirt.

But summits and sweatshirts won’t make Russia a superpower. Only a credible show of strength can do that. The war in Ukraine was meant to supply this, but it has instead become a slow-motion demonstration of Russia’s decline—less a catalyst of national revival than a case study in national self-harm.

Moscow has devoted considerable resources, manpower, and political will to its invasion of the country next door. In purely military terms, it has managed not to lose and may even be eking its way toward some sort of attritional victory in the Donbas. But even if it consolidates its territorial gains and keeps Ukraine out of NATO, Russia will have won only a Pyrrhic victory, mortgaging its future for the sake of a few bombed-out square kilometers. In other words, Russia is effectively losing the war in Ukraine—not to Ukraine, but to everyone else.

In virtually any likely end-of-war scenario, Ukraine will remain a hostile, Western-armed neighbor—a permanent sucking wound on Russia’s western flank. Europe will continue to embargo Russian goods and build its energy future without Russia’s Gazprom. The Russian army, having shown itself moderately adaptable to modern warfare, will nonetheless be gutted of equipment, bereft of its best cadres, and reliant on foreign suppliers. To reconstitute it will take years and many billions of dollars. By then, Russia’s supposed mastery of modern drone warfare will probably be obsolete.

While Russia obsesses over Ukraine, its erstwhile friends and clients are quietly slipping away. In Africa, Wagner’s heirs struggle to hold their franchises together, and China and the Gulf states are buying up influence, drawing from far deeper pockets. In the Middle East, Moscow’s old claim to be an indispensable broker appears totally vacuous.

Russian Troops in Ukraine Selling Guns, Harming Unit Effectiveness, and Boosting Crime

Paul Goble

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some Russian troops sent there have been taking their weapons home, undermining unit effectiveness and boosting the amount of violent crime in Russia.

This trend has been exacerbated by the presence of a large number of criminals in the Russian forces as a result of Putin’s massive recruitment of men in prison to fight in Ukraine, and an effort by Russian troops to maintain the high incomes that Putin’s bonus system had allowed.

Today, Russian officials are alarmed because some soldiers appear to be taking weapons without much difficulty, an indication of problems in the military itself and a harbinger of more crime and potentially more political problems at home.

Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, some Russian troops have been stealing weapons from the Russian military in Ukraine and taking them back to the Russian Federation when released from service. This threatens unit cohesion and effectiveness in Ukraine and boosts the amount of violent crime at home (see EDM, November 29, 2022, February 25). The difficulties of recovering the weapons of demobilized soldiers have been a problem for many armies during or immediately after a conflict. This phenomenon is especially serious in the Russian case because many of the men now fighting for Moscow in Ukraine have criminal backgrounds and are serving there only because Putin has released them from prison if they agreed to serve in Ukraine (Window on Eurasia, June 28, 2024, August 21).

This reflects a deeper problem for Russian society. Russians are paid vast bonuses to join the war effort, and many veterans turn to a life of crime because there is a lack of well-paid work that would allow them to maintain the new lifestyles the sign-up bonuses provide (Window on Eurasia, May 16, June 6). Their readiness to turn to crime, therefore, is an effort to boost their incomes. The upsurge of crime has unsurprisingly alarmed ordinary citizens and Russian officials, and increased hostility toward veterans. Moscow has thus been compelled to take additional steps to curb the criminal behavior (Window on Eurasia, March 29, April 15, July 18, August 6; The Moscow Times, September 9).

Russian Drones Allegedly Swarm Poland in Major Provocation...But Whose?

Last Sunday Russia launched a large-scale drone attack that was again described as the “largest ever” with some sources counting 805 total drones and decoys launched:

It was followed up on Tuesday with another large attack of over 400+ drones and 50+ various missiles. This strike stood out as a significant number of these drones reportedly flew to Poland, and quite deep into the interior of the country at that, which has never happened before.

As always there were two versions of the story, the “topside” propagandized one where Polish and NATO officials tried their best to carve out an angle of deliberate Russian ‘aggression’, not letting the incident go to waste. And then there was the ‘behind-the-scenes’ version, which painted the incident as much more ‘controlled’ than it seemed, where diplomatic channels calmly coordinated the response.

More specifically, Belarus was said to have warned Poland that wayward drones—which were being affected by Ukrainian EW—were headed their way, with reports even claiming some rogue drones had to be shot down over Belarusian territory as well.

The Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, General Wiesław Kukuła, announced that the Belarusian side warned Poland about drones approaching its territory.

In an interview on TVN24, he noted that such an attitude was surprising in the context of the tense situation at the land border. At the same time, he emphasized that the Polish side decided to make use of the provided information and did not abandon cooperation.

This is a good sign. Let us recall that in a conversation with Patrycjusz Wyżga on the program "Didaskalia," Colonel Piotr Krawczyk, former head of the Intelligence Agency (2016-2022), clearly stated that the West’s policy, including Poland’s, toward Belarus should be based on pragmatism to avoid pushing the country into Russia’s hands.

Netanyahu's bet fails The consequences of Israel's attack in Qatar

Lawrence Freedman

Yesterday’s strike by Israel was intended to kill off not only what was left of Hamas’s top leadership as they met in Qatar, but also the peace plan that they were discussing. It failed in the first objective. Did it also fail in the second? The natural assumption is that it is hard to complete even a mediated negotiation with people you have just tried to blow up. But the manner of the attack and its failure to achieve its primary aim changed the power dynamics behind the negotiations. This is especially the case because of the annoyance it caused Donald Trump.

Targeted assassinations have long played a prominent role in Israeli strategy against those organisations committed to its destruction. The value of such an approach is debated less than it should be. In practice these organisations rarely stay decapitated for long and it is not always the case that the successors are less competent or ruthless than those killed. In the case of the pursuit of those responsible for the attacks of 7 October 2023 there is clearly an element of retribution, but that leaves open the question of whether the elimination of particualr individuals makes it harder or easier to deal with Hamas militarily or politically.

At any rate Israel has worked hard on this element of its strategy and has achieved many successes. It has murdered over the years leaders of Hezbollah and of Hamas, as well as Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists. On 30 August Ahmed al-Rahawi, the prime minister of the Houthi-controlled government in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, was killed in an Israeli strike along with several ministers. In mounting these strikes, Israel has shown ingenuity in gathering intelligence on the movements and location of its targets. When it has decided to strike it has done so with impunity. The United States, which is the only country with any leverage, has not appeared too bothered by this practice. It has not been averse to targeted assassinations of its own.

The remaining top leadership of Hamas was targeted yesterday. Some in the firing line owed their positions to past assassinations. The most important figure present, Khalil al-Hayya, is the leader of Hamas’s Gaza units. He replaced Yahya Sinwa, the architect of the 7/10 attacks, in 2024. While he survived this attack, his son, chief of staff, and bodyguards were killed, along with one Qatari soldier. Also present was Zaher Jabarin, leader in the West Bank, who had replaced Saleh al-Arouri who had been assassinated in Beirut, also in 2024. Jabarin seems to spend much of his time in Turkey, from where he may have travelled to Qatar for this meeting.

The Widespread Fallout of Israel’s Qatar Strikes

Amr Hamzawy, Andrew Leber, Marwan Muasher, and Sarah Yerkes

The Middle East Program in Washington combines in-depth regional knowledge with incisive comparative analysis to provide deeply informed recommendations. With expertise in the Gulf, North Africa, Iran, and Israel/Palestine, we examine crosscutting themes of political, economic, and social change in both English and Arabic.Learn More

Below, four Carnegie scholars react to Israel’s strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, and the repercussions for specific countries and the region.

The Gulf States’ Limited Options

Israel’s air strike in Doha on Tuesday was a wakeup call for the Gulf states: There are few limits on Israel’s ability and willingness to use military force in the region.

Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani immediately received an outpouring of support from other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders—not only the usual phone calls of support but high-level visits from leaders such as the UAE’s President Mohammad bin Zayed (with more to follow).

Beyond the ever-harsher rhetoric of official statements, however, it is unclear what meaningful steps the Gulf states can or will take to respond.

Kuwaiti political scientist Bader Al-Saif urged Gulf leaders to use the “tools at their disposal”—chiefly diplomatic and financial pressure—to deter Israel, while Qatar’s prime minister called for a “collective response . . . from the region.” Yet with prominent Gulf commentators already noting that “there is no longer a force capable of threatening Israel,” Tuesday’s attack underscores the GCC states’ seemingly inability to dissuade or deter Israel from further aggression—even on these states’ own soil.

During the decade-and-a-half when Iran dominated Gulf security concerns, leaders in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi could variously lean on the United States to take action against Iran (and affiliated groups) or defuse tensions with Tehran in pursuit of shared economic and security gains.

Neither option exists with respect to Israel.

Report: Pentagon unprepared to defend against emerging drone warfare

Vaughn Cockayne

A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.

U.S. forces are vulnerable to drone swarms due to insufficient scale and urgency in efforts to meet the demand for affordable, precise drone and counter-drone systems, a new report says.

Researchers at the Center for a New American Security acknowledged the Department of Defense’s efforts to improve drone capabilities over the last decade, but said it has not been enough. While the Pentagon has invested in drone and counter-drone systems, a lack of urgency has let U.S. rivals take the lead, they said Wednesday in a report.

China has far outpaced the U.S. in development and production, the report says. Without rapid development and production, U.S. forces are at risk of being overwhelmed in a potential conflict with China.

“Without deep magazines of substantially enhanced counter-drone capabilities, the United States risks having its distributed warfighting strategies overwhelmed by massed Chinese drone attacks, and the United States could lose a war over Taiwan,” the report reads.

In a battle over Taiwan, U.S. forces would need to counter an increasingly drone-reliant China, the report says. The People’s Liberation Army has long considered drones to be an integral part of its military apparatus and has launched significant investment programs to improve their effectiveness. In 2024, China ordered 1 million kamikaze drones to be manufactured by 2026 and has continued to invest in research and development.

The report provides numerous recommendations to the Pentagon, emphasizing investments in new and emerging technologies while enhancing training and integration. Specifically, the report advocates for increased counter-drone training across all armed forces, ensuring that all troops can defend themselves against the emerging threat.

Researchers said disaster can strike for lack of that proper training.

Terminators: AI-driven robot war machines on the march

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Opinion I've read military science fiction since I was a kid. Besides the likes of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, and David Drake's Hammer's Slammers books, where people held the lead roles, I read novels such as Keith Laumer's Bolo series and Fred Saberhagen's Berserker space opera sf series, where machines are the protagonists and enemies. Even if you've never read war science fiction, you certainly at least know about Terminators. But what was once science fiction is now reality on the Ukrainian battlefields. It won't stop there.

You see, war always accelerates technology's advances. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine first took drone technology from expensive gear to cheaply made drones that are literally made from cardboard. As the battles continued, both Russia and Ukraine have countered each other's drones by interfering with GPS and jamming the wireless bandwidth used to control the drones.

As a result, both sides have taken to using fiber optic drones, which are unjammable. They're not perfect. You can follow the fiber optic cable back to their controllers, their range is limited to about 20 kilometers, and they are being countered by nets being put up around roads and important sites.

So Ukraine has been working hard on the next logical step of drone warfare: AI-driven drones. It is far from the first. If you try to cross the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), you might be stopped by a South Korean SGR-A1 sentry robot, which is armed with a K-3 machine gun and 40mm automatic grenade launcher. These static robots have been deployed since 2010.

Israel has also been pushing forward with a variety of AI-driven war machines such as the Harpy and Harop, loitering munitions; and the six-wheeled RoBattle. The US has also been retrofitting its MQ-9 Reaper and XQ-58 Valkyrie drones with AI, while the experimental Longshot comes with AI built-in. And, sorry Top Gun fans, but Maverick won't be able to beat VENOM AI-equipped F16s fighter planes when they're finally deployed.

BAE, Lockheed Martin plan large jammer drone as door opener in combat

Rudy Ruitenberg

LONDON — BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin are teaming up to develop a family of uncrewed autonomous air systems, with an initial focus on electronic warfare, the companies said at the DSEI UK defense show here on Tuesday.

Details remained scant as the companies announced their collaboration. The system will be in the 1-tonne range and able to carry different payloads, according to Dave Holmes, the managing director of BAE Systems’ FalconWorks division.

The goal is a cost-effective vehicle that’s easy to modify as well as easy to deploy, be that air dropped or launched from ground or maritime platforms, said OJ Sanchez, the general manager of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.

The design will include “modularity and adaptability,” according to the partners, who cited a need to quickly develop and field affordable combat mass.

Drone and missile makers are increasingly touting systems that can be tinkered with to keep them relevant, as well as cheaper and faster to produce.

Pan-European missile maker MBDA presented a one-way effector with 800 kilometer range at the show on Tuesday that can be built using different off-the-shelf components and armed with various warhead types.

BAE and Lockheed Martin will disclose specific applications for the system as those are being developed, with cost “an important variable” for the design team, Sanchez said.

The system is not considered a missile and will be designed to return, while still being of “an attritable nature,” according to Holmes. The return mechanism would be something other than landing gear, possibly a parachute, the executive said.

As Drones Swarm Battlefields, Militaries Seek Cheaper Defense

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The proliferation of uncrewed systems in the Ukraine-Russia war has highlighted the importance of drone defense capabilities. But the dilemma militaries around the world face is that the attack weapons tend to be far cheaper than the response to destroy them.

Drone costs can range from just a few hundred to several thousand dollars, and their price tag is rapidly depreciating as innovation and mass production pick up. That’s a fraction of the outlays for most air defense missiles, which at the high end command price tags of tens of millions for a single shot.

Efforts to solve that conundrum were on display this week at the DSEI defense expo in London, where the halls were packed with lasers, missiles, jammers and even other drones designed to defeat small, uncrewed threats. What they all had in common was an attempt to bring down the “cost per kill.”

Drones — or uncrewed systems, as the larger versions are often called — have come to the forefront of warfare since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. As the conflict chews through more conventional battlefield tools like artillery, both sides of the conflict have leaned heavily on drones for surveillance, defense and attack missions.

“In Ukraine, it’s really scaled drone-on-drone warfare,” said Jan-Hendrik Boelens, CEO of anti-drone company Alpine Eagle GmbH. “And our interceptor is essentially a small drone, so it has the price tag of a small drone.”

Electronic warfare, including jamming and spoofing that confuse drones’ controls systems, is another defensive method. Dozens of companies at DSEI promoted such technology, which has the benefit that it can potentially intercept multiple drones at once.

“It would then essentially wipe out the electronics in the entire swarm, and they fall to the ground,” Mike Sewart, the chief technology officer for Thales SA’s UK subsidiary. “Rather than a point-and-shoot model where you are literally targeting those drones one by one.”

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